The world kickboxing champion went through a gruelling grading on Saturday to gain the coveted ‘Kru’ status in Muay Thai.

Kru Leif Taggart, another of the Falcon Fight Academy instructors at the Dinnington martial arts base, put Kerry through over four hours of testing.

Fighting through a shoulder injury, she put to good use skills learnt from Maltby Thai Boxing Club chief Phil Glover over the past few months.

Speaking after gaining her grade, she said: “I am thrilled at my achievement, I have trained under Cris (Janson Piers, head coach) since I was seven years old in all the disciplines and when I said I wanted to push my K1 career as far as I could Cris suggested Muay Thai so I had more armoury and even more importantly, to enable me to recognise my opponents’ skills.”